Right after the solidly built chestnut colt with four white feet and a big white blaze down the center of his face won the Preakness two weeks ago, putting him on the doorstep of thoroughbred immortality, Steve Coburn, the colt's co-owner who cries as often as his horse wins, offered up California Chrome to the people.

"It's hard for me because I get very emotional about it," Coburn said. "But I honestly believe this is America's horse."

America will gets it chance to scream and holler for California Chrome once more Saturday in the Belmont Stakes, where he will try to become the first Triple Crown winner since 1978.

Thirty-six years ago, another chestnut horse named Affirmed won the Kentucky Derby, Preakness and Belmont Stakes in the same year. Since, 12 horses have gotten to Belmont Park with the chance to join the select group of 11 Triple Crown winners. All failed.

"We need a hero right now," Art Sherman, the 77-year-old trainer of California Chrome, said by cellphone last week from southern California.

Why not California Chrome, the people's horse?

America can love this story, because it's one not often told in the sport of kings. Thoroughbred racing is a rich folks' game. They go to horse sales in Kentucky and Florida and Saratoga Springs, N.Y., to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on what they hope will be the next great race horse. And then the horse is sent to a high-profile trainer like Todd Pletcher or Bob Baffert.

California Chrome was not bought for hundreds of thousands of dollars, his owners are not rich and his trainer isn't famous.

"We are not Todd Pletcher or Bob Baffert," said Alan Sherman, California Chrome's assistant trainer and Art's 45-year-old son. "We don't have a lot of horses in the barn, and it's hard to fathom winning the Kentucky Derby and Preakness and now having a chance to win the Triple Crown."

The Sherman Racing Stable is based in California. They have 40 horses in training in northern California and 20 at Los Alamitos Race Track in the southern part of the state.

Before California Chrome won the Kentucky Derby, nobody outside of Los Alamitos Race Track in southern California ever had heard of Sherman, who spent 21 years as a West Coast jockey and has been training horses since 1979.

Not a whole lot of people really believed in California Chrome, either. He was a dazzling runner on the speed-favoring California tracks. But when Chrome got to Louisville for the Kentucky Derby, the local horsemen could not wait to tell everyone why this colt would not win the most famous horse race on U.S. soil.

They had good reasons. California Chrome was born in California, and a California-bred had not won the Derby since 1962. His sire is an obscure thoroughbred named Lucky Pulpit.

It only cost $1,500 for Chrome's owners to breed Lucky Pulpit to their mare, Not For Love, who they bought for $8,000. Do the math, and they are on the verge of having a Triple Crown winner for the bargain-basement price of $9,500.

"It's great for racing when you have a story like that," said Elliott Walden, the president/CEO and racing manager of heavyweight WinStar Farm in Kentucky. "It tells everyone that they can get in the game."

WinStar, by the way, has a horse in the Belmont Stakes named Commissioner. They bought him for $150,000. Walden said the average price for horses WinStar buys is between $150,000 and $200,000. The biggest buy came earlier this year, when WinStar bought a colt for $1.6 million. Coburn and his partner, the seldom-seen Perry Martin, could have bought 168 California Chromes with that much loot.

During the week before the Kentucky Derby, California Chrome, despite his four-race winning streak, was not getting respect. Kentucky-based trainer Dale Romans, whose Medal Count would finish eighth in the Derby, could not hide his contempt for California Chrome, saying he didn't belong. Fellow trainer Dallas Stewart, whose Commanding Curve finished second in the Derby and will run in the Belmont, was also a Chrome naysayer.

"Yup, and I was wrong," Stewart said. "We all tried to get smart and add up the breeding. You knocked him because he was from California and he ran on the speed track at Santa Anita. We were wrong. That horse is just a runner."

California Chrome has been in New York for almost two weeks. His every move has been watched by Alan Sherman, who accompanied the horse from Baltimore after the Preakness. Art Sherman went back to California two days after the May 17 Preakness to tend to his horses at Los Alamitos; he's expected in New York on Monday.

Alan Sherman has fielded questions about California Chrome day after day, standing in front of a microphone outside the Belmont Cafe. He can't explain why this phenomenon named California Chrome has happened.

"I think (California Chrome) is just a freak," Alan Sherman said. "You just never know what can happen."

Alan Sherman said there only has been one time that he was disappointed in California Chrome, and that came the first time the horse ran. It was April 26, 2013, in the second race at Hollywood Park. The maiden race was worth $53,000, and California Chrome went off at 7-1, the fifth choice in the field of nine California-breds going 4ï»¿1/2 furlongs.

"I always liked the horse, and I bet on him in that first race pretty good," Alan Sherman said. "He didn't win; he ran second. I bet $500 on him to win, and that is a big bet for me. I got nothing. He has paid me back since then."

California Chrome does have some star horses in his breeding, as his bloodlines go back to Pulpit (second in the 1997 Florida Derby, fourth in the 1997 Kentucky Derby) and AP Indy (1992 Belmont and Breeders' Cup Classic winner) and even 1977 Triple Crown winner Seattle Slew.

But Lucky Pulpit, California Chrome's sire, raced 22 times in his career and had just three wins, five seconds and five thirds. Lucky Pulpit finished seventh -- and last -- in the 2014 Santa Anita Derby at odds of 33-1.

Ten years later, his famous son won that same race by 5 1/4 lengths and ran the fourth fastest time (1:47 2/5) in the race's history.

"We think maybe he got one special gene," Art Sherman said. "Really, we don't know why we would have gotten that extra special horse. But I know he has become the people's horse."

Earlier this spring, California Chrome's owners turned down an offer of $6 million for the horse. Coburn said he had a dream that California Chrome was going to win the Triple Crown. If that dream comes true, Coburn, who works in a factory in Nevada, won't have to worry about not being rich anymore.

Belmont Park could see a record crowd -- there were 120,139 there in 2004 when Smarty Jones failed to win the Triple Crown -- come through the turnstiles Saturday. And just about all of them will be there to witness history. They want to see California Chrome do it one more time.

"This has been such a story, such a ride," Art Sherman said. "There has been a lot of eye-balling all over the country about this horse, and he deserves it. You want to know something? I am going into (the Belmont) more relaxed than ever. He deserves to be the favorite to win the Triple Crown. He has done fantastic, and I could not ask for a horse to be doing any better than he is doing now. We're ready to go."